Chorleywood Growth Partners

Commercial advisory for consumer brands entering and scaling in UK retail. Tier-1 grocery, high street, marketplace, B2B and direct.

Brands rarely lose their margin in the negotiation. They lose it in the eighteen months that follow. Retail media spend, rebates, service penalties and price matching each take a small share, and none of them appear in the deal that was signed.

Each of those is defensible on its own. Together they are the reason revenue accelerates while cash does not.

The practice exists to locate that erosion and close it, using judgement built inside the retailers that set the terms.

Capabilities

Retail readiness

Range logic, margin architecture, supply capability and commercial narrative, tested before a Tier-1 buyer tests them.

Margin architecture

Gross to net-net diagnostics and joint business plan reconstruction, so realised margin survives contact with the trade terms.

Channel expansion

Retail, marketplace, B2B rewards and incentive platforms, and international entry, structured so the economics are not conceded in order to win the listing.

Gift card and DTC to retail

Direct-to-consumer brands built into a physical retail proposition, including gift card and prepaid routes to market and the processing and data infrastructure behind them.

Entering the UK

Overseas brands rarely lose a UK launch on the product. They lose it on a term sheet written for a supplier with UK scale, and on a cost to serve that only appears once the listing is live. I have run the buyer's side of that conversation at Tesco and WHSmith, and the supplier's side inside Moonpig Group.

Route selection

Grocery, high street, marketplace, wholesale, B2B rewards and gift card each carry a different margin structure, a different listing cycle and a different cash profile. Choosing the wrong first door costs a year.

Term sheet and cost to serve

Retail media, rebates, promotional funding, service level penalties and price matching, modelled before the deal is signed rather than discovered in the first year of trading.

Landed cost to shelf price

Duty, freight, UK packaging and labelling compliance, extended producer responsibility fees and distributor margin, resolved back to a net position a board can hold.

Anatae, a Tokyo consumer brand, engaged the practice to run the mirror of this in Japan. The work is the same in either direction: read the retailer's economics before agreeing to them.

Who this is for

Consumer brands between roughly £2m and £50m in revenue, either preparing for a first Tier-1 UK listing or already listed and finding that realised margin does not resemble the deal that was signed.

Overseas brands are a substantial part of the practice. There is no requirement for a UK entity, a UK team or existing UK distribution before we begin; establishing the right structure is frequently the first piece of work.

Below that range a distributor or a broker is usually the better answer, and I will say so rather than take the engagement.

Selected experience

Operating board P&L, Moonpig Group

£16m, £3m EBITDA

Third-party channel growth, retail, marketplace and B2B

£8m to £19m

Retail partner commercial terms renegotiated

£1.1m saved

National retail footprint delivered for a B2C proposition

3,600 stores

DTC brand converted into a multibrand gift card proposition, national convenience chain

Japan

Merchandise plan ownership, Tesco fresh food category

£190m

Category ownership end to end, WHSmith food to go

£100m

Forecast accuracy, WHSmith food to go

70% to 99%

Wastage reduction over the same period

14% to 5%

Sale of Buyagift and Red Letter Days to Moonpig plc

£124m

References

Jag was instrumental in initiating and growing relationships with several of the country's largest retailers, and some of those deals simply would not have happened without his leadership. What stood out most was how quickly he was able to adapt his UK expertise to the Japanese market and business culture.

Eliass Hotta Bouhaik
Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Anatae, Tokyo

Over a four year period Jag helped us secure, grow and manage numerous high profile retail accounts. Under Jag's leadership our retail division became a highly motivated and high performing team.

Dan Mountain
Chairman, Buyagift and Red Letter Days, now part of Moonpig Group

Both are published recommendations on LinkedIn, quoted without edit. The forecast accuracy and wastage figures above are operating results from the WHSmith food to go category; the forecasting implementation behind them is separately documented in a published RELEX customer case study.

Jag Banwait

Founder and Director. External Advisor, Bain & Company.

I have sat on both sides of the retail table. Nine years buyer-side at Tesco and WHSmith, deciding which suppliers earned their space. Then six years supplier-side inside Moonpig Group, on the receiving end of that same conversation.

That is the whole of the value. I know what the buyer's spreadsheet says about your line, because I used to build it.

Twenty-five years across UK retail and consumer, including Tesco, WHSmith, Moonpig Group, Hamleys, Asda and Sainsbury's.

Engagement

Retained fractional commercial leadership, for teams that need a commercial director without a full-time appointment.

Defined-scope assignments at fixed fee, typically a range review, a margin diagnostic or a channel entry.

Advisory and non-executive mandates for investors and PE-backed consumer businesses.

Enquiries

Enquiries are answered personally.

London and remote.

Chorleywood Growth Partners Ltd. Registered in England and Wales, company number 17107730.
Registered office: 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ.
VAT registration number GB 516 8870 60.

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